ABOUT YOKA(EN)

YOKA is an outdoor brand founded in 2015 with the theme of “making holidays the best they can be.” Its 2015 debut was actually at an interior design exhibition (there weren’t many stylish outdoor exhibitions at that time). Starting with wooden chairs and tables, collaborations with apparel manufacturers were successively decided. Gradually gaining momentum, in 2018, YOKA released a cooking griddle and a fire pit. The “local factory-style fire pit” that can be made without costly processes like press forming and can be folded, originated with YOKA’s COOKING FIRE PIT. In 2019, tents, fishing rods, and cooking utensils were also introduced. In particular, the YOKA TIPI tent became a top-selling hit product within YOKA’s lineup.

While gradually expanding the range of products, YOKA has consistently adhered to creating “original designs in-house.” They design, prototype, actually use and experience the products, and repeatedly make improvements. Although it takes a lot of time to complete one item through this process, they believe that at the end of it, products that combine ease of use, high durability, and quality design are born. And the existence of such YOKA products gradually elevates everyone’s holidays. This is the kind of product development they aim for.

Designer :Takashi Tsunoda

From toys to outdoor furniture, he designs everything himself, manufactures it at his affiliated factory, markets it at exhibitions, and sells it.
What I truly need, I am sure someone else can also share! With this as my creed, I enjoy my daily life and try to find ways to make it more enjoyable, sometimes complaining and sometimes finding solutions, and giving shape to them as products.

I was born in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture. I majored in graphic design at Kyoto City University of Arts, but got hooked on playing in bands while I was still in school, and after graduation I played as a drummer in several bands including “Anti-Gravity Johnny” without finding a job. However, he felt the limitations of his music activities and joined a part-time job at Kyoto-based Koto Co. Ltd. in Kyoto, where he had a part-time job. He went on to become a game designer.

At the time, I was drawing dot characters for two-fold cell phone games, and the “how to express and convey things with a few elements” that I learned at that time has had a great influence on me today.

While making games, I also became interested in programming, and even though it was in a script language, I was able to create an action puzzle game that could actually be played. I became a designer who could plan a game, create characters, and create a program that could actually be played, and my desire to work on everything from 1 to 10 began to show itself during this period.

About five years later, I got involved in a project that started in another department (a project in which users could make their own paper pipes from newspaper and use them to make crafts), and I invented a product called “Pieploid,” which sold printed paper pipes that users could cut and assemble to make a doll, rather than roll their own paper. He invented a product called “Pipe Lloyd. A one-man department was created to “manufacture and sell what you design.

In 2009, he became independent in order to further expand what he could do by taking on the entire process from design to manufacturing to sales. I moved my base to Tokyo and created new products. The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami caused the company to reset its approach to manufacturing, but the wood and paper craft “Play Deco,” which was invented with renewed enthusiasm, won a Good Design Award.

In 2013, we incorporated as twelvetone inc.

Until 2014, the company sold mainly interior accessories, but in 2015, utilizing the aforementioned Playdeco idea, it invented the “YOKA” series of thin, foldable, assembled outdoor furniture made of wooden boards.

Currently, I live by Lake Yamanaka, where I continuously experiment with outdoor products while also being active as AKOY, a sauna musician.